The Peterloo divide

I write in response to your recent article Peterloo (December). I have two relatives who were in different political camps regarding the massacre. And their differences seem to have stemmed from their economic circumstances. David Bellhouse (1764–1840) and George Bellhouse (c1769–1825) were both born in Leeds, younger sons of a Leeds joiner. Both took up their father’s trade. There the similarities end. David Bellhouse moved to Manchester in the 1780s, where he initially worked as a joiner. Soon he speculated successfully in workers’ housing. By 1819, he had become a wealthy businessman running a timber yard, a building and contracting business and a cotton-spinning factory.

On his father’s death in 1796, George Bellhouse took over the joinery business in Leeds but it failed in the early 19th century, whereupon he also moved to Manchester to work as a joiner. He never enjoyed his brother’s financial success. George was at the Peterloo meeting on 16 August 1819. Afterwards, along with several others, he signed a statement protesting against the violence on the part of the army and maintaining that the meeting was peaceable. Brother David, in the opposite camp, signed a petition calling for more law and order after Peterloo. These appeared in the Manchester Mercury on 7 September and 19 October 1819 respectively. David Bellhouse, Ontario

We reward the Letter of the Month writer with our book of the month. In this issue that is Unquiet Women: From the Dusk of the Roman Empire to the Dawn of the Enlightenment by Max Adams. See page 71